NAS vs. external enclosure for HTPC

[Caryas]

Hi I have machine which is configured to work as a HTPC and for that only I am looking for some suggestion concerning an external storage space system that I can access right through my house. I was thinking of receiving a 4 bay enclosure which I could clip to a PC via eSata and go from there. What do you guys think should I in its place go with some kind of network storage or that would be better or is it just as good receiving an enclosure whose drives are noticeable over the network? Also, for what I'm looking to do, is there an advantage to using RAID? Any suggestion would be appreciated.

[MACuser]

Well if you having a machine which act as a HTPC, then I am assuming which be consisting very good hardware and if suppose you have a very good storing capacity then why waste money on the External storage, and if suppose you don’t have that much HDD you can have option to get another HDD with capacity of 1TB, and that would be good option for sure. And you can have another option as well, like if there isn’t any space for adding another one you can add a portable HDD also with the machine.

[Aandaleeb]

If you compare NAS and External enclosure, then off course External Enclosure would be good idea as with the help of that you can add up to 4 to 5 HDD with your machine. but while using the NAS all the data would be stored in the network storage and off course for accessing those data you have to have active network connection as well, though External enclosure may cost you more but still you will get very good storing capacity.

[Filiberto]

See let me tell you the difference between those storage medias, as the name implies NAS it is used in the environment where the actual machine has to import the data from other location, I mean to say within certain area, in other words I would say from the LAN, and for that environment NAS would be the best option for sure, but as you have mentioned that you have HTPC at your place, so there isn’t any need of network for importing the data.

[Erubiel]

According to me you should have Mediasonic (HF2-SU2S2) 4 Bay Sata enclosure for your HTCP, I also uses the same thing at my place and really through this we can have very storage medium. I would like to tell you about some of the features for the product as you can have all brand of 3.5" SATA I / II hard disk, together with this you’ll have Transfer rate up to 480Mbps, with the enclosure there is built in Thermal-Sensor, through which you can control the fan speed and maintain the temperature.

[samar69]

The idea behind NAS is very easy as the device, usually with no monitor or mouse or keyboard is associated with two things that’s the electrical power and your network. A set of configuration screens, usually accessed throughout a Web browser and assist to place you up by an IP address and user accounts. And Within a few minutes, you can have GIgabytes or terabytes of extra Storage capacity.

[Howitzer]

The thing that matters is the budget you have, because as the above user mentioned the setup will cost you very highly, and because of that you have to have an internet connection or at least a LAN connection to access the data. And for that moment external storage will might cost you the same but you may add a new HDD any time with any capacity. So my recommendation is towards External storage rather than NAS or SAN.